STAGE FRIGHT
Broderick nervous about live ‘Christmas Story’
O NLY a few days remain until Fox’s production of “A Christmas Story Live!” premieres Sunday night and star Matthew Broderick, who plays the adult Ralphie Parker, hero of the beloved 1983 film, is understandably nervous.
“This is our final week of rehearsal,” Broderick tells The Post. “It’s extremely complicated, just trying to get it staged in a way that actors get to the right set at the right time.”
Broderick is also the show’s narrator. “I’m in almost every scene. I’m a narrator who doesn’t get to look at a book and talk into a mike.” Accustomed to doing this kind of thing in front of a Broadway audience, Broderick worries that he may have been miscast. “They should have hired a newscaster,” he says.
The musical version of the beloved 1983 film about an Indiana kid who dreams of getting a Red Ryder Carbine Action BB gun for Christmas, premiered on Broadway in 2012, with songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the composing duo who won an Oscar last year for the song “City of Stars” from “La La Land.” “A Christmas Story Live!” is being staged on the Warner Bros. back lot with a company of about 40 actors, led by Broderick, Maya Rudolph, who plays Ralphie’s mom, and new- comer Andy Walken, who plays Ralphie.
“He’s very bright and sings beautifully and can dance,” Broderick says.
Directed by Scott Ellis and Alex Rudzinski, who won a 2016 Emmy for helming “Grease Live!,” the show takes place around what Broderick calls the “any town” town square, where, he proudly adds, Robert Preston sang “Ya Got Trouble” in the 1962 movie musical “The Music Man.”
Broderick saw the original Broadway production of “A Christmas Story: The Musical” and remembers it as “so sweet and funny but not sickeningly sweet.” Now that he’s been rehearsing for eight weeks, he has had time to reflect on the relevance of Ralphie’s story, which is now 50 years old, having first appeared as a chapter in the 1966 Jean Shepherd novel “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.” “I think the story is very accurate about family life. It may be old-fashioned, but it captures what it’s like to try and get your parents’ attention. And be afraid of your father and also want to get him to talk to you.” Since NBC aired “The Sound of Music Live!” in 2013 to great ratings (18 million) and some scathing reviews (Broderick thought it was “lovely”), these live musicals have become an annual event, but “A Christmas Story” is the first to have a holiday theme.
“I feel the seasonal aspect is good and we’re leaning in on it,” says Ellis, who is calling in between rides at Disneyland, where he has taken his twins, Parker and Charlotte, on a day off from rehearsals. “Hopefully people will come in loving that movie, I don’t think many people know the musical. There was never a cast album. They’ll see things they weren’t expecting.”
Ellis asked for the Parker house to be staged in the round. “We embraced the 360 degrees,” he says. “You have to be able to move cameras in the living room. I asked for escape routes so Matthew can go and pop up when I need him.” For his part, Broderick is hoping his wife, actress Sarah Jessica Parker, will text him during the show to tell him “how it’s going or to zip up my fly.” Would he recommend this kind of live TV gig to his theater friends back in New York? “I’ll know more after Sunday,” he says. “It’s been very difficult and interesting. I wouldn’t expect it to be a breeze. It’s quite an intricate kind of job so if you’re in that mood go for it.” Sunday at 7 p.m, Fox